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Hayne and Inu just Minto boys
By Jessica Halloran From: The Sunday Telegraph May 01, 2010 11:22PM 2 comments
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Home turf ... Krisnan Inu and Jarryd Hayne at Townson Park in Minto. Photograph: Anthony Reginato Source: The Sunday Telegraph
JARRYD Hayne sat on the Minto train station bench. He watched the shadows grow longer, stared at the trains rattling by. This is where some of the greatest days of Hayne's life began.
He turned to his best friend, Krisnan Inu, and the giggles started.
"Remember the time you said you love the train so much that you said when you get a car you were going to keep on catching the train," Hayne said, his laughter reaching a crescendo.
Inu, now laughing along with him, shook his head. "Yes . . trains are great."
Hayne then reflected a little more.
"Playing NRL, it's all good. But some of the funniest times I had was growing up. Knowing you are chasing something. Chasing being an NRL player, that is the most exciting time because you don't know if you are going to get it."
Hayne, now 22, grabbed that dream and is the owner of a Dally M Medal and a new black BMW. The Minto kid is a multi-million-dollar man.
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"Around Parramatta, you get a lot of richies who say, 'how good is it, you're an NRL player, you must have the best life', Hayne said. "The last couple of years, yeah, they've been great, but before that - the 17, 18 years before that - they were times of struggle."
To get to know the man, you must start at the beginning and walk the Minto streets with him.
Hayne grew up on Stafford Street, in a simple red brick house just around the corner from the train station. As he rests on the driveway, he tells how his single mum Jodie struggled financially.
At times she couldn't afford to buy him footy boots. His dad, Manoa Thompson, a former Rabbitohs player, drifted in and out of their lives.
So when others failed around him, lost to drugs or drink, how did Hayne make it to the NRL?
"I knew it was pretty much my only means of survival," he said. "Mum was obviously not that well off. She wasn't financially well off. Dad was doing his own thing. I knew I had nothing else. So that was it. That was my life.
"I gave everything to rugby league because I knew if I didn't make it in rugby league ... "
He pauses. "I really don't know what I'd be doing. I wouldn't be doing anything good."
He also made it because of two "friends". It is probably not the best word to describe Hayne, Inu and Henry "Chiko" Iuta - they are more like "brothers".
All three lived within a few houses of each other and were always carrying footballs.
They would often wag school to stay at Hayne's place, where they would play PlayStation - usually Grand Theft Auto. Then around 1pm, still in their school uniforms, they would catch the train to Parramatta.
They would peel off their school jumpers and put on their Eels jerseys and walk the shopping mall for hours.
"Back in those days we were no one," Hayne says. "We go to the shops now and you sort of don't want to be noticed, you just want to be normal. It goes to show how far we have come."
From the mall, they would head to footy training or touch at their local ground in Minto.
"This is where we used to run amok," Hayne said, leaning up against a broken fence, as he showed The Sunday Telegraph around his old neighbourhood. "There are some good memories here, hey."
This is the ground where Hayne first tried all types of tricks - the ones that now befuddle the best players in the game. The local kids knew he was "the man".
"When you play around here you want to be known as the man," Hayne said. "You want to make a name for yourself. You don't want to be playing footy and playing like everyone else.
"You want to do something different. It's similar to the way I play in the NRL. When I play, I don't want anyone to compare me. I want to be unique. I want to be someone no one can compare to.
"Coming from an area like this, if you are going to be like everyone else ... you need to do something different."
Speed defined Hayne back then. "Haynesy was the man because he was real quick," Inu said.
Hayne added: "It's like what you see on TV now. I was quick and that, but Inu had the best feet. He's very agile. I had a bit more hand skills. Chiko was robust. He put a shot on me once here."
Hayne starts laughing, again. "It was just fun playing footy here. It's like when you have a dance-off. You want to show you have the better moves."
After stunning everyone with those "moves" in the second half of last season, there are now huge expectations and he admits it is hard to handle.
"At least I know I'm a big-time player now," Hayne said. "I'm not a kid that needs to find my mark in the game. I'm slowly trying to be up there with the best players in the game.
"It's obviously hard to handle, but if you want to be the best you need to be tested. This year, I have been tested immensely. I haven't had the best start, but there are still 19 rounds left. I just see it as a test and a challenge. I'm excited. All this pressure, it makes you a better person once you come out of it."
He is now targeted by defences, yet he doesn't complain. He has Andrew Johns in his ear telling him to persist - "be patient and wait for the right time to get involved".
He also looks to Test captain Darren Lockyer for inspiration.
"My job is just to get out there and do my best," Hayne said. "I love blokes like (Johnathan) Thurston, (Cooper) Cronk, Lockyer, who have been in the game for such a long while.
"You know the amount of pressure they're under is nothing compared to what is on me.
"They have so much more pressure. I try and watch them play and learn off them and see how they handle it. "Especially Locky. He's such a great character. He's been at the top of his game for so long.
"He's been in the Australian team for so long. He's been in there because of what he does. He's one of the hardest trainers I've ever seen.
"He works hard. He's always there for his team-mates. That's something I aspire to do. It's something not in my game."
Hayne admits at times he tries to do too much.
"I'm going to try and do too much when my team isn't going too well," Hayne said. "That's a given.
"If I'm in any team I'm going to put my best foot forward to try to do something. It can hurt the team or make it better. At the end of the day that's the type of player I am. My team-mates know that."
When Hayne was young, he made a vow to himself not to be like his dad. Thompson, now a truckie, could have been something more.
Now a constant in his son's life, Thompson tells Jarryd to learn from his mistakes.
"If I feel I'm going down the wrong track, he's always good to talk to," Hayne said.
"He blew his chance to establish himself as an NRL player.
"He had the talent. He had the skill. He pretty much just pissed it down the drain. It's something I have vowed never to do."
Without his dad in those early years, no one stepped into that "father-figure" role. Hayne admitted he grew up thinking everything he was doing was "right", which perhaps explains his wild years which saw him bite a girl in a nightclub and be shot at in Kings Cross.
"I never had someone to straighten me up," he said.
"I've grown up thinking everything I do, I am doing it the right way. That's probably one of my downfalls because when I am not doing it the right way, I still have so much confidence in what I do."
These days, his faith is also keeping him on the right path.
"I'm reading the Bible and I am reading a book for 40 days called The Purpose Driven Life," he said. "Ways to help you out in life and better yourself. A lot of people I've been hanging around think they are going to last forever. Especially playing footy, you think going out and partying will last forever. You need a reality check at times."
In the old days, after footy training with the Cabramatta Two Blues, Hayne, Chiko and Inu would get back on the train.
By this time all the boys - including Inu, who was notorious for carrying about half-a-dozen bread rolls and eating them throughout the day - were starving.
"We then used to go to Granville," Hayne said. "From Granville, we used to have a five-minute turnaround to Campbelltown, we used to grab kebabs and that. That was our diet. We'd get home at 10."
They still hang out often - although it is harder for Chiko, who has two kids and another on the way.
Standing at the old footy ground at Minto, Mina Funa, Chiko's partner, watches the three boys keeled over in laughter.
"It's just always laughs with those three," Funa says. "We've got two kids now and a third on the way. Haynesy is always like saying to Henry, 'Come sleep over'.
"He's like, 'Bra, I'm a dad now I can't come and stay over at your house all the time'. But Henry still goes and hangs out with him. Jarryd's never forgotten his roots - even though he is a superstar. He's never forgotten the boys."
Although there were tough times growing up, Hayne wouldn't have had it any other way. He plans to spend more time in the area, playing touch footy and inspiring the kids to achieve what he has.
"I think it helps being brought up in an area like this," Hayne said. "The main motivation was always to move out of here. To always get out here. But I love coming back down here.
"This will always be a part of me. I will always remember where I am from."
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...-just-minto-boys/story-e6frexnr-1225860978148
Would be sad to see INU leave
